The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1887-11-09
Need of Practical Education.

4 nave Ottb d-EHito bf itafnt0 ktO-
fessors that the collegiate course is mere
| ly an exercise, useful in forming and
strengthening the mind. Therefore, use
I less studies become useful as dumb bells,
stiffening the mental muscles and impart-
/ ing tone to the intelligence. Would not
useful studies and the acquiring Of facts
needed in the daily grind 10 come be
equally healthful to the mind?
The most our graduates acquire is
barely a smsttering of each subject.
Why? Merely because there is not time
TO give each branch of study conscienti-
Gus and exhaustive research Il may be
asked why. then, the number of studies
is not limited. The answer is simple.
Between the vanity of the parents, who
I like to say that their sons are deep in
/ this abstruse, and the stubborn conserva-
| tism of the faulty. retaining Eighteenth
century sentiment in this Nineteenth CEN
/ tury of practical life. the course is filed
with tares and there Is no room for the
| wheat
OF what use are Latin and Greek to the
youth who must soon strip in the strug
| gle for bread ? The barest excuse is that
they give an insight into the derivation
of language Well? dictionary will do
as much. Why waste four years in ham
mering verbs and nouns, declensions and
conjuga'ions into boy who is destined
afterward to sell coffee OF soap? OF what
valuable use is French? ? twill take sew
eral wears to learn, and in most cases not
worth dollar to the future man
Fathers, examine the studies pursued
by your sons. You will find that you are
spending your money and wasting their
most precious time storing up glittering
tinsel TO theexclusion Of what can benefit
them in the sterner DAYS to come. Cast
them adrift upon the sea of life without a
thorough education in some practical
subject of value to the world, and which
in u needy hour they coin into bread, and
you are casting them adrift IN ships of
lead without life preserver or a spar
aboard A sunken rock or a storm and
they are lost
If they need mental exercise let them
juggle with practical subjects-mechsn-
les, bookkeeping. drawing, practical
chemistry, arithmetic, and English Ian
guage and physics. Let them learn how
to keep accounts, how to handle tools,
how to build and work an engine, how to
detect adulteration in staples of commerce
how to understand the machinery of the
great practical world--and not learn the
vagaries of the land of dreams.
If you have learned the bent of your
sons mind, confne him strictly to studies
pertaining to his calling and cast all
others away.
Our boys are not fools They know
the uselessness of half the labors imposed
upon them, and. being Americans. resent
the encroaching upon their liberty
Rather than Latin or Greek, they take up
the fantisticoes of the poker deck, they
twankle banjo, and are erudite only in
the latest laws 'appertaining to trousers
or collar. We neglect to give them m
weapons to fight the battle, and they be-
come skulkers in the rear. We turn
them loose upon the world with no means
for employment they reply by beconsng
idle and profliga ate, prematurely wasted,
the soul of Saturn in the body of Adonis,
crowded from the race for future and
fame by striplings Of humber life, whose
education ran in narrow lines, but was
sturdy and sharp as an ak TO hew their
path.-Hsnry Guy Cartston IN New York
World.